Saturday, January 21, 2006

David draws—but his eyes are inflamed by color. Drawing keeps him honest but color keeps his soul alive. Color is his passion, his enthusiasm, his fire. The thousand blues in his mind’s eye are like a harem; the act of painting like a night of endless love.

Of course he has his favorite colors, like every artist. “What a horrible thing yellow is!” exclaimed Edgar Degas. Alexander Calder loved red so much he cried, “I wish I could paint everything red!” Winston Churchill lamented, “I am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” The teacher Fernand Corman scolded a student, “Wait, where is the ivory-black? My God, you aren’t thinking of making black by mixing blue and red?”

David, inflamed by the palette of Paris, gorges on the color that every stall provides and returns it, digested, onto a primed canvas waiting to be fed.